Cool Design?

17 comments:

Jeff said...

Sounds a lot like Steve Gibson from Truth Driven Thinking.

Joe E. Holman said...

And I currently have a horribly gut-gripping stomach virus that has me expelling at both endS!

...

"COOL DESIGN!"

Unknown said...

I have the smoking gun you've been searching for. It was discovered in 1828 by reverend turned atheist Robert Taylor.
The 3 steps are:

1. There is an immense lack of historical evidence that Jesus ever existed. There is absolutely no credible evidence whatsoever. The story is a myth.

So if Jesus is a myth, then where did this Jesus Story come from?

2. Crucified Saviors existed in many religions prior to the alleged time of Jesus. (Christian forefathers had a fit trying to explain this.)

If this story is so prevalent, seemingly universal, existing eons before the alleged time of Jesus, then what does the story mean?

3. The Story is an Astronomical Allegory for the Sun passing through the Zodiac each year. The sun is the original god that dies on the winter solstice and is reborn/resurrected 3 days later, on Christmas day!

This last assertion is a bit tentative, but upon examination of the Jesus Story it's incredible just how much of it actually fits! And it provides a rational explanation for the origin of religion and the meaning behind the Jesus Story.

Humans were first hunter/gatherers, then they organized and became farmers—and this is where religion comes in. In order to farm you need to be aware of the seasons of the year; you need to be able to communicate to others your ideas; and you need to be able to pass down to the next generation the knowledge you've accumulated—hence “The Book”. You also have to have FAITH that this farming technique will work and you will be rewarded for your efforts with a bountiful harvest in the future.

If this theory is correct then ancient Religion was archaic science and modern science is our new religion.

Lessons explaining basic concepts of observational astronomy, and then showing the striking parallels between the Jesus Story and the Sun's annual passage through the Zodiac and the changing seasons of the year, are at:

http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/index.htm

Emilio Mejia Jr. said...

That "cool design" chorus really made the video awkward for me to watch, and I'm a non-believer. I've re-posted it where I can hoping to get an even more awkward and though-provoking response from believers.

Yoo said...

I loved how it started with the very typical designer viewpoint and progressively moved on to more painful "designs". Both funny and depressing at the same time ...

Edwardtbabinski said...

Check out my online article, "Why We Believe in a Designer" [satire]

zilch said...

Well, it is all "cool design": you just have to look at it from the right standpoint. Not that of humans, but that of the organisms whose cool design enables them to make more of themselves- or more accurately, that of the genes whose cool effects catapult them into the next generation. That, of course, doesn't account for things like trisomy 18, which can be regarded as an unavoidable occasional glitch in the cool design.

Joe E. Holman said...

Edward T. Babinski said...

"Check out my online article, "Why We Believe in a Designer" [satire]"

My reply...

That was indeed a good article, Ed. I remember reading that when you first wrote it. I loved the points you made.

(JH)

goprairie said...

"occasional glitch"
correct that such at thing cannot be accounted for by a designing god theory, but it is one of the very mechanisms of evolution that things not be reproduced as perfect copies every time. the occasional glitch might be harmful, neutral, or beneficial. when the beneficial glitch allows the organism to move into a new niche and is passed on to new copies of the organism, a new species is on its way to being.

zilch said...

True enough, goprairie- mutations are also "cool design", seen not from the standpoint of the organisms, or even their genes (for whom mutations are glitches), but from the standpoint of evolution and life in general, which could not happen without "glitches". So I guess this is the coolest design of all possible worlds after all.

goprairie said...

"mutations"
A god paradigm allows for not mutations but since they exist, you get all kinds of crazy explanations for them, sort of a 'god started it and then left it hands off' approach to the involvement of opposing forces such as evil entities. None of them quite fit in with other explanations for other things.
An evolution paradigm not only allows for mutations but requires them. which is more logical to believe?

Bloviator said...

I love all these Edward Current videos. He is a really funny guy and a great straight-man. I have had many people believe that he is an actual fundie.

Deleyd, I have seen that supposition before and I agree that probably all religions started on an agricultural cycle. However, the interesting part to me would be to trace the belief systems of nomadic tribes who would have no use for such a system. Do you have any info on this?

goprairie said...

"nomadic tribes who would have no use for such a system"
not true at all - all food and shelter raw materials follow seasonal cycles whether they are grown purposefully in agriculture or found by hunter gatherers - you need to know when the materials will be available in order to successfully provide for yourselves while moving around. you would notice perhaps that certain stars were in a certain place in the sky as you cooked a certain food. all the skills needed for farming are needed for successful use of wild resources, and additionally, some sort of mapping system is needed to communicate not only when to go but where. primates are opportunistic and eat and use what they find without figuring out the patterns, but figuring out general patterns like that nuts are available in the fall and roots of young plants on the forest floor are edible in the spring and berries in the summer and the patterns of game animals would allow a group to expand into new ranges bit by bit as they looked for similar but different versions of familiar foods and materials. and teaching each other how to use new things and what didn;t work allowed further expansion beyond what one person could find in a lifetime. this simple act of learning actively from a parent and actively teaching ones young leads to the ineveitable thinking about origins and endings. and it is easier to talk about a star pattern lining up in a certain way when it is time to go to the place where there are blackberries if you make it into a story and make the stars into a pattern that represents a character in that story.
here is one thing i have wondered: there are two basic kinds of north american native origin myths - one is of people coming up out of a crack or opening or cave in the earth and the other is it being build up out of something from within a body of water such as the earth-made-on-turtles-back that is common to several cultures. first talk was of migration over the bering strait land bridge and more recent talk has been of people hopping along the coastlines in boats. might a groups origin myth be related to which of these ways their ancestors got to the continent?

Bloviator said...

goprairie:

Yeah, I kinda figured that about 1 second after I hit the send button -- and I am not one to rework a post once sent. Apologies for impulsivity...

I like your idea about the myth development around migration patterns, but don't know of any research out there. Certainly such natural activity has been the cause of much in the way of folklore, such as the preponderance of flood myths (rising tides after ice age). Also, is it not possible that some of the ritual 'cleanliness' actions of the proto-Hebrew peoples, which are canonized in the bible as god-given law, were actually common-sense responses to health situations -- I am thinking here of separate plates for meat and dairy, and of course circumcision. My understanding (quite limited) of mythmaking in the ancient world is that it not only related to questions of existence, but also answered questions regarding how a particular people came to be where they currently were (i.e., why this land and not that; why does our tribe wear certain types of headdress, etc.)

I personally love this kind of stuff and am looking forward to some of Lee R's future posts.

Anonymous said...

Thanks bloviator,
I'll post another in my myth series sometime in the first week of august or before.

Shygetz said...

Humans were first hunter/gatherers, then they organized and became farmers—and this is where religion comes in. In order to farm you need to be aware of the seasons of the year; you need to be able to communicate to others your ideas; and you need to be able to pass down to the next generation the knowledge you've accumulated—hence “The Book”. You also have to have FAITH that this farming technique will work and you will be rewarded for your efforts with a bountiful harvest in the future.

1) Hunter-gatherers had to be as acutely aware of the seasons as farmers. They had to know which wild fruits/berries/nuts/animals would currently be most plentiful

2) Hunter-gatherer tribes also had/have religions; they are not a development of agriculture

3) Hunter-gatherers also had a pressing need to pass on knowledge; perhaps even moreso than early agricultural societies. Of the HUGE numbers of wild flora and fauna, early hunter-gatherers had to know which were edible, when each could be harvested, where each could be found, the best method for gathering, which could be stored, where the useful game trails and watering holes were, etc. etc.

4) Faith was no more necessary for agriculture than for hunting/gathering. In fact, very early agriculture was essentially hunting/gathering crops inadvertantly planted at a campsite through scattering and fecal deposition of desirable seeds gathered elsewhere. Both had to have confidence (although I would argue that it wasn't faith, it was justifiable prediction based on previous evidence) that their next food source would be there in the coming days as the winter stocks dwindled.

I'm afraid your hypothesis clashes with the data. Daniel Dennett in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon has quite a bit about the possible origins of faith. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel has written an excellent book on the development of early agricultural societies and their development into more complex societies. He also has a bit on the role of organized religion--not the origins of faith, but the role of a specialized priestly class in stratified societies to organize and justify collective actions. They both are fascinating reads, with extensive lists of evidences, and I highly recommend them.

goprairie said...

our archaeology has focused on stuff and not so much on ideas, i guess because there are artifacts of one and not the other.
but what is out there in thinking about how religion started?
i keep throwing out the idea that it involves the timing of processing by brain parts. like when you are outside at night and your senses are overwhelming your brains with inputs and a lot of it is going to the reptilian part of the brain where predator threat and peripheral vision are processed. visual imput goes there without our awareness and causes us to react (as in blindsight) and also goes to other areas of the brain that we are aware of. could that quicker processing by the 'unconcious' parts of the brain make us think there is another being there near us or around us? was that what made stories get turned from make-believe to 'Believe!' - what made us willing to believe in spirits? and what makes belief in spirit entities that are more or less our peers turn into 'higher' beings, superior dieties? when spirits are of the trees or rocks or river or dead relatives and 'like' us, religion seems more friendly and useful, but when it gets shifted to some of the gods are megapowerful, it gets abused. people are more willing to do extreme things for an all powerful diety, more willing to commit travesties against each other. what cause that shift?